French court hands suspended sentence to man who attacked Jew on train

(JTA) — A French court handed a six-month suspended jail sentence to a young man who attacked a Jewish train passenger.

Last week’s ruling by the criminal court of Lyon was the result of a complaint filed by the SPCJ, the French Jewish community’s watchdog against anti-Semitism.

The assailant, who was not identified by name in French media, hit a man wearing a kipah on Jan. 26, 2011 aboard a train traveling from Paris to Lyon.

“You Jews with your skullcaps, you think you run the world,” he said, adding profanities. The assailant then followed the Jewish man to the train bar, making derogatory remarks about him, his mother, father “and your whole race.” He then hit the man in the chest.

The SPCJ said it welcomed the sentence.

In July, two men of North African descent exchanged blows with a Jewish teenager aboard a train from Toulouse to Lyon. The teenager said one of the men, Yassine Salhi, had made anti-Semitic remarks. French prosecutors are investigating.

SPCJ documented more than 90 anti-Semitic incidents in the 10 days that followed the March 19 shooting in Toulouse, in which a Muslim extremist killed three children and a rabbi at a Jewish school.